the hmong village

Glug, glug, glug. I looked down toward my feet and the source of the strange sound. Water bubbled in through a crack in the tiny wooden boat. We reached the shore. Our feet sank deeper into the muck with each sloppy step as we walked up the muddy bank into the small river-side village. No roads reach this place, but they have running water and electricity. The river provides transportation and access to outside food and goods.Children run toward us waving and yelling "Sabadee!" which means hello in Lao.

We walk passed small stores and cement houses. The people look happy and healthy. Our guide, Lee, explains that we are in a Khmu village. The three main tribes in Laos are the Lao Loum, the Khmu, and the Hmong. Lee is Hmong, the poorest of the three tribes. We continue our journey through the jungle. We walk up and down hills and finally, up a very steep slope. An hour and a half after leaving the Khmu village, we reach our main destination, the Hmong village in the mountains.

No children ran to greet us. We walk passed one small thatch-roof structure housing handmade crafts. A very dirty, naked baby wearing only a bracelet sits between his grandmother's legs. The men and women are out working the fields. The children and elders are the only people left in the village. No one seems to notice or acknowledge our presence. We stop 50ft down the path at a similar structure to have lunch. Under the shade of the thatch-roof, two women sit on an elevated bamboo mat with two small children. One of the women works on a hand-stitched pillow case. The other lays there, fanning herself and watching her baby play with an empty water bottle. The women are dressed simply in well-used clothes you might find at a goodwill back home. The children's clothes are filthy. One of the little girls wears a dirt-stained t-shirt and skirt. The other wears a t-shirt, but no pants and has dirt smeared across the right side of her face. They are both about 18 months old. The girl in the skirt waves to us and smiles. It's the first expression of kindness I've seen from someone in the village. I smile and wave back. Other children approach us. They do not smile or wave, but look at us strangely. Bits and pieces of torn and stained clothing hang from their dirty bodies. The youngest children are naked from the waste down. Unlike the children from the Khmu village, none of the children around us smile, laugh, or play. Like their elders around them, the children look sad and bored. I began to feel troubled.

We have lunch and Lee tells us that the villagers live here because the land is free. The twenty families that live here have never had the privilege of running water or electricity. Lee explains that it is common to have as many as 9 children. The more children you have, the more help you have in the fields. The village grows food to feed itself. The people pay no utilities, no taxes, and no rent. Their only source of income is from the crafts they sell to other Lao people, who in turn, sell the goods at the night market in the city. One man sits outside his house weaving beautiful baskets. One basket takes three full days work. Lee speaks to him in native Hmong and the man invites us in. The house is built on the ground. We walk through the small door and into the dark space. It smells of smoke. The dwelling consists of one large room with several bamboo cots along the perimeter and an assortment ragged clothing and used goods strewn about. Cobwebs dominate the spaces between structural ceiling members. Sylvan and I look up and a startled by several large spiders. "Spiders in the house are good luck," Lee says with a smile. Lee explains that this is a typical Hmong house. To our left is the "kitchen" where a fire simmers and glows bright orange in the dark room. Above it are husks of corn, drying in preparation for next years crop. A small wooden pot filled with rice sits to the right of the "kitchen" on a small wooden bench. I looked around the half-dark room. "An entire family lives here," I thought to myself. It was like something out of national geographic. A place that I have seen, but somehow thought didn't really exist. Could people actually live this way? The village is completely isolated, an hour and a half hike from any other village.

We walked through the rest of the village, then returned to the picnic table and benches under the thatched roof. We stayed there for some time. I watched the two women on the bamboo. One of them lied down. They sat and lied there for over an hour, not doing anything. The children walked around in groups, back and forth from house to house. I wanted to go the village to see the minority people, to visit with them, to play with the children, to experience their lives. I asked Lee what the people in the village, the elders and the children, do all day to occupy their time. He thought for a moment, then replied "Nothing." I left the village feeling quite depressed. I have seen many poor people throughout my travels in SE Asia. I have never seen a people so unhappy.

As we hiked the next two hours through the jungle, I reflected on what I had seen, what it meant to me, and what I should learn from this experience. The trek back was strenuous and the path was over-grown. The jungle was loud and crawling with life. We also found a lot of the jungle life crawling on us: giant centipedes and beetles, black worms, armies of ants, and swarms of butterflies. The insects in the jungle are larger than life, like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. We managed to make it through the jungle safely. Another adventure...